


i wanna know what love is (i want you to show me)

by tetsurou



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, spoilers for s3b i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 05:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1676861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetsurou/pseuds/tetsurou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia doesn't know much about love, but she knows she feels it the most when she's around Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i wanna know what love is (i want you to show me)

If Lydia Martin were to ever write a book about love, the first chapter would say to never fall prey to it, because sometimes the hurt that comes with it is worth less than the happiness it brings. Lydia thinks that her parents never told her about love because they didn't know what it was, either.

Maybe they never told her about love because they wanted to spare her the pain.

Lydia fell in love with Jackson Whittemore in between dance steps. It before they started falling apart, back in freshman year, and they were alone in his house for the first time. He stole some wine from his father's liquor cabinet, and they drank themselves silly and he asked her to dance. All she could remember was colors, the green in his eyes and how he looked at her, and his hands and him spinning her around until they fell on the floor and laughed until the sun rose.

She remembers it like it was yesterday, the same way she remembers being a kid and loving her dad more than anything in the world, before he and her mother fought more than they talked and before they looked at each other with more resentment than anything else. She could close her eyes and be the Lydia that told Allison that she was her new best friend, before she knew how important and how close to her heart the other girl would soon become. She could reach out and feel her mom's arms around her as she teaches her how to dance by letting Lydia step on her toes and spinning her around the living room, just like how she could sit in silence and imagine her grandmother's voice calling her Ariel for the first time. It's the same way she remembers Jackson giving her the key to his house and his heart along with it and she loved him so much she could cry. She remembers holding that same key in front of him in that warehouse, her heartbeat running away from her, and when she brought him back he swept her into his arms and she felt like she could breathe again.

They're precious things, held close to her heart. Everytime she feels like she's drowning, like she couldn't breathe, like the world was trying to swallow her whole, she'd think about those moments, let them cloud over her until she felt whole again.

If Lydia Martin were to ever write a book about love, half of the pages would be blank, because there are so many things she doesn't know, and what she does know she doesn't think she could put into words.

When she thinks of love, she thinks of her mother, strong and beautiful and smart as they come. She thinks of Allison, the person she knows how to love without qualm or question, who knows Lydia better than she knows herself. She thinks of Scott, of how much he loves Allison, of everything he's done for her and will continue to do, who believes in fate and destiny and believes that he and Allison are meant to be. She thinks of Derek, who is broken in every way a person can be, who loves his pack in the fierce way he has. She thinks of Jackson, her first love, who loved her and showed it when in mattered the most.

She doesn't know much about love, but she knows she feels it the most when she's with Stiles.

Stiles Stilinski, the boy who talks more than he breathes, who doesn't ever stop moving, no matter it be flailing arms or twitching in his seat, who fooled himself into thinking he's in love with her in the third grade, and how he kept fooling himself and convincing himself it was real, even when he didn't even know her, who told her his first name in one of his rants and how she's the only one who can actually pronounce it, who grew his hair out because he forgot to get it buzzed and Lydia told him it looked good longer. He smiles at her and winks at her and does his own version of flirting, which mostly includes telling her terrible jokes and expecting her not to roll her eyes, who used to want to impress her but now mostly wants to make her laugh. Lydia thinks that Stiles is beautiful, in the most unconventional way possible. Lydia thinks that of all the people she's met, Stiles glows the brightest. She thinks that of all the people she's met, Stiles is the most beautiful.

If Lydia Martin were to ever write a book about love, she would scrap the first chapter and replace it with one that says to find a person who would hold you through it all, through the good and the bad and the horrible.

She thinks of when her dad first walked away, and how her mother cried and tried to hide it under make up and false smiles, how Lydia crawled under her mom's covers when she heard muffled sobs and wrapped her arms around her until the tears stopped. She thinks of that night in the warehouse and how Jackson held her, like she was something special and irreplaceable, and how he hadn't held her like that in a long, long time. She thinks of Allison beside her her and letting Lydia cry into her shoulder when she found out that Jackson was leaving and most likely never coming back. She thinks of the story Derek told them, how his eyes became blue and how he lost his first love, how he held Paige in his arms and how he felt the life leave her, and she grew heavy and stopped breathing and he didn't let her go until he wasn't allowed to hold her anymore. She thinks of Scott and Allison and how he almost lost her in that fight, of how he held her in his arms and how he thought he was going to lose her, of how he held her close as she told him that she would never stop loving him, how he couldn't take her pain, but they saved her and he held her again and again until he was sure she wouldn't disappear. She thinks of Stiles, lifeless under her arms, of him waking up and holding her hand tightly with all the strength he could muster because they survived another twist life threw at them and they almost lost Allison and she almost lost him so she took his hand and he held on tightly and they stayed like that for as long as they could.

If Lydia Martin were to ever write a book about love, it would say that when you find someone who holds you in both the bad times and the good, hold them back and never let go.

She doesn't know a lot about love, because she's just making it up as she goes, but she knows moments, and she knows the moments that she keeps close to her heart and she knows the how she feels in each and every one of them. She doesn't know a lot about love, but she knows the exact moment she falls in love, and she knows it well.

Lydia fell in love with Jackson Whittemore in between dance steps.

She falls in love with Stiles Stilinski in between words and in the middle of a story. They are in a story themselves, a story of wolves and hunters and god knows what else, a story of a boy and a girl, but she falls in love with Stiles while he's telling her his own.

They're in Stiles' room, and Lydia finds herself spending more time in that room than she ever thought she would, she's spending more time with _Stiles_ than she ever thought she would, and Lydia could think of a million excuses but she knows she won't use a single of of them, because the thing is, Lydia is spending more and more time with Stiles because she wants to be around him more than she's ever wanted anything else.

They're in Stiles' room, sitting on the floor with their backs against the side of his bed, and he's telling her a story and she's listening to him talk and it somehow becomes him telling her how he fell in love with her.

"We were in third grade." Stiles laughs when Lydia scoffs. "Yes, third grade, okay? Shh. So, I was entranced by your beauty and grace and intelligence and all that, but that wasn't the moment, I swear. It was like two days after I first saw you, and I was with Scott—hey don't try to interrupt I'm trying to tell you how I fell in love with you have some respect—and you were in the hallway talking to Danny and you laughed. You laughed long and hard and you were smiling so hard your eyes disappeared under the crinkles beside them and your dimples came out full force, and god, you were so beautiful. I chased after you and tried to make you notice me because I wanted to see if I could make you laugh like that again."

Lydia looks at him, and he smiles at her, in the soft way Stiles never really knew how to be, and that smile grows bigger and brighter and more alive and Lydia grins back. She lowers her head into his shoulder and he leans his head against hers and she knows that they're both still smiling.

Lydia feels something blossom in her chest, growing and growing and she thinks that Stiles got under her skin and stayed there without any intention of ever leaving and she knows that this is the moment.

She whispers to him, "Tell me a story."

So he does.

If Lydia Martin were to ever write a book about love, she would scrap all the pages and delete every word because love doesn't need reason or rules, because every love is special and unique and she knows that more than anyone, because love is something that you have to learn for yourself, because she can't put into words the amount of it she has felt in her entire life, and she knows that she didn't know what love was because no one ever taught her, but she knows now and she doesn't plan on letting him go.

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd because i wrote this at three am whilst sleep deprived and ingesting caffeine so if it sucks then im sorry


End file.
